On the solid–fluid interface of adhesive spheres

The adhesive-sphere interaction potential provides a good model system to study the influence of the attractive well depth on phase behavior and interfacial phenomena. We investigate the solid–fluid phase behavior of adhesive spheres with the modified weighted density approximation (MWDA) of Denton and Ashcroft. We then apply a planar-averaged density functional approach (PWDA) to determine interfacial properties. We find both a narrowing of the interface between fluid and coexisting fcc solid and an increase in the interfacial energy with increasing attractive interaction strength in accord with the empirical relation γ≊ 0.47ΔHρ2/3s. In addition, we investigate metastable solid nucleation through calculation of metastable bcc solid–fluid interfacial tensions and find results suggesting the possibility of such a route to stable solid formation.